Ep 243: Retired CAE Summer Series – Part 1 w/ Robert Brewer

Summary

The Audit Podcast - Ep 243: Retired CAE Summer Series – Part 1 w/ Robert Brewer

Host: Trent Russell
Guest: Robert (Bob) Brewer, Former Chief Audit Executive
Release Date: June 9, 2025

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Episode Overview

In the kickoff to the Retired CAE Summer Series, host Trent Russell talks with Bob Brewer, a career CAE who recently retired after over 30 years in the internal audit and compliance world. The episode aims to provide honest, post-career insights from a former top executive—covering political realities, personal development, career regrets (or lack thereof), and essential advice for auditors everywhere. Key questions revolve around lessons learned, maneuvering organizational politics, invaluable career skills, and what Bob would record as the first and last chapters of his professional story.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Staying Current After Retirement (03:11)

• Bob spends more time on travel sites now, but remains intellectually curious and tries to stay up-to-date on technological advances relevant to audit, such as quantum computing.
  • “AI is big. But...it seems like quantum computing seems to be the next thing coming down the pike that people will be using on an extensive basis.” – Bob (03:23)

2. Reflections on a 30+ Year Career (05:08)

• Perspective on Regrets:
  • Bob attributes his successful career to following great mentors and focusing on the future rather than dwelling on the past.
  • “I'm not the type of person that likes to look back and say, 'Oh, I wish I would have done this, I wish I would have done that...' I'm a more future looking guy.” – Bob (05:30)

3. Resources for Auditors Tracking Emerging Risks (06:54)

• Valuable Sources:
  • Big Four firms’ publications, IIA leadership, and especially CAE roundtables.
  • Roundtables provide insight beyond the theory—yielding practical, experience-driven knowledge on implementing new trends.
  • “All the theory, you know, then comes the practical goal where you got to implement and do it and, you know, the issues you're running into—that’s where, you know, I found real value in roundtables.” – Bob (08:41)

4. Political Realities: Navigating Organizational Politics (10:57)

• A High-Stakes Whistleblower Case:
  • Bob recounts handling a whistleblower complaint that led to an SEC investigation and heavy lawyer involvement.
  • Key advice: Stick to the facts, keep emotion out, and remember your audience.
  • “I had opinions along the way, but I've kept my opinions to myself and dealt with the facts and presented the facts and kept all the discussions fact based...” – Bob (11:53)
  • On dealing with the SEC: “...be 100% honest, forthright...If you do that, you’ll get respect from them. It goes, at the end of the day, better for the company and all the people involved.” – Bob (12:59)

5. The Importance & Rarity of Such Events (17:07)

• Such severe situations are rare in a typical CAE’s career.
  • “Going in front of the SEC is not something that's going to happen to everyone...Hopefully you have a great attorney.” – Bob (17:10)

6. #1 Advice for Every Auditor: Communication Skills (20:10)

• Beyond technical expertise, Bob urges auditors to prioritize both written and oral communication.
  • “If you're going to progress and have a successful career, concentrate on your communication skills, both written and oral... If you don't know how to present it...it's of no value.” – Bob (20:12)
• On academia’s shortcomings:
  • “That's not something that the universities and...many other schools, top notch rated schools, they don't spend much time on developing the students' communication skills. And that's so important.” – Bob (21:11)

7. Cultivating Communication: Training & Practical Experience (22:23)

• Recounts a formative, intense week-long public speaking course arranged by his employer, which paid dividends even though it was “no fun.”
  • “Every word you said was critiqued...at the end of the week, it was so much different.” – Bob (22:36)
• Practical tip: Present at IIA or AICPA meetings to hone skills in a supportive environment.

8. Bookends of Bob’s Career: First and Last Chapters (25:50)

• First Chapter – "The Turnaround Guy":
  • Bob specialized in transforming underperforming audit departments through focus on people, processes, and technology.
  • People are the hardest—and most rewarding—element. He often relied on team members self-selecting out if unwilling to align with new standards.
    • “If those [employees] are all high performers, I wouldn't have been there...I found the reward is in the development of people.” – Bob (27:02; 28:13)
• Last Chapter – "You Own Your Career":
  • Emphasizes owning your own progress and goals.
    • “You are responsible for your career. Your boss is not responsible for your career. The audit committee is not responsible for your career.” – Bob (29:05)
  • Find what you love, set goals, and pursue continuous improvement—otherwise risk becoming stagnant.
    • “Do we always have to do it better? And I said, yes, because if you don’t do it better...that’s how you become extinct.” – Bob (30:28)

9. Lessons Learned (the Hard Way) (31:18)

• Both testifying to the SEC and intensive communication training were “brutal”—but growth always follows difficulty.
  • Host sums up: “If you don't go through kind of the suck, then you're probably not going to be better on the other end of it.” – Trent (32:32)

10. Parting Wisdom: Love What You Do (33:10)

• Find passion in your career. Accountants and auditors see all sides of a business—leverage this perspective to find the discipline you truly enjoy.
  • “If you don't love it, you're not going to put that extra effort in on a consistent basis.” – Bob (33:27)
  • “The people that get into...executive management, they love what they're doing and they do it and they put the extra effort in to be successful at it.” – Bob (34:26)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On communication:
  “You can come up with some of the greatest findings...but if you don’t know how to present it and work with people on getting it implemented, it’s of no value.” – Bob (20:15)
• On politics:
  “Stick to the facts...Let the other people draw the conclusions, because it wasn’t my job to draw the conclusion.” – Bob (12:00)
• On responsibility:
  “You are responsible for your career. Your boss is not responsible for your career...If it hasn't worked out, you know, it's because you didn't do something right.”—Bob (29:06)
• On growth:
  “Probably got that from my time in the manufacturing world. You're always...stressing how you could tweak, you know, a quarter of a percent of a penny out of cost...So that fed into other groups. And I'm a big believer in...constant improving and constant learning.” – Bob (30:50)
• Closing encouragement:
  “Find something you love to do, do it, do it to the utmost best of your ability, and work very hard at it. And you’ll look back and say, wow, I not only had a successful career, I enjoyed doing it. And I had some fun doing it along the way.” – Bob (33:30)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Staying Up-to-Date Post-Retirement: 03:11
• Career Reflections & Regrets: 05:08
• Finding Emerging Trends: 06:54
• Realities of Organizational Politics: 10:57
• The SEC Incident & Lessons Learned: 11:53–16:03
• Advice to Auditors: 20:10
• Communication Training & Continual Learning: 22:23–24:07
• The First & Last Chapters of a CAE Career: 25:50–30:28
• General Life & Career Wisdom: 33:10–35:07

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Final Thoughts

Bob Brewer’s insights serve as a blueprint for future and current auditors: prioritize communication, embrace challenges as learning opportunities, seek out practical peer knowledge, and above all, intentionally steer your own career. His story demonstrates that sustained success relies as much on people skills and personal ownership as it does technical prowess.

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Transcript

[A]

If you're going to progress and have a successful career, concentrate on your communication skills, both written and oral, because those will make all the difference in your career, because you can come up with some of the greatest findings that could have a significant impact on the company. But if you don't know how to present it and work with people on getting it implemented, it's of no value.

[B]

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Audit Podcast. I'm your host, Trent Russell. Today on the show, we are starting our retired CAE summer series. Part of this retired CAE series, hoping to get maybe a little bit more transparency from the retired CAE since they aren't part of their organizations anymore. Not that. Not that we feel like we don't get that from the caes that we talk to now, but nonetheless, that was really the goal, to really learn from them. I think anytime you can take a step back, take a break. I know whenever I take two weeks off every year, when I come back, it's like completely different. Mindset's different. There's more clarity. I have more of an understanding of what I actually want to do, goals, objectives, things like that. And so considering these. Most of these retired CAs have been like that for a couple of years, we thought it'd be really good to get their perspective. So to kick this series off today, we have Bob Brewer on the show. He is the former chief audit executive at Las Vegas Sands, former chief compliance officer at Office Depot, and has been retired for one year and eight months as of the recording of this intro. All right, so some of the things we hit on with Bob, with time to reflect on his career, what would he do differently at any point in his career? I know that's kind of like an easy, obvious question, but I also think it's a really good one as people have had time, again, to reflect on their career. We also asked, if a new CAE asked for a politics lesson that Bob may or may not have put on the record while he was an fte, what story would he tell them? Again, trying to understand, understand a little bit more about what. What happens politically, regardless of the negative connotations of that word, if Bob could grab every auditor by the shoulders and just shake them and ask them to do just one thing in his career, what would that be? And then to close it out, if Bob wrote a book about his career as a cae, what would the first chapter be about? And then what would the last chapter be about? Here we go. Hey, everybody. Before we go to the show, quick announcement on September 24th and 25th, 2025, we'll be having the Audit analytics and AI Conference. So block your calendars. It's going to be between 9 and 4 Central. That's 9 and 4 Chicago time. So again, that's September 24th and 25th. If you're in your car right now, probably want to pull over, go ahead and put that in your calendar. Save the date there more to come from us, but want to let you know, save the date September 24, September 25, 9 to 4 Central. What's in your either your Internet browsing history or ChatGPT or any kind of LLM kind of AI tools you might be using. What have you kind of been looking around, looking into here recently?

[A]

Yeah, Trent, since I've been retired by looking is much different than it was when, when I was working. A lot of travel sites in there I'm looking at now, and so look at those. But I do go out and try to keep up. And, you know, AI is big. But, you know, I always liked when I was working to see what was the next thing coming after. You know, we, you know, we were working with AI and it seems like quantum computing seems to be the next thing coming down the pike that people will be using on an extensive basis. So I've been trying to, you know, get myself up to speed a little on quantum computing just so I can, you know, talk intelligently about it if I'm speaking to any of my peers who are still working and keep myself up to date in the mind active.

[B]

And I know you. So you retired for a little while and then you got pulled back. And I think you said maybe you'll share this story later. But I think you said you told them when you're interviewing, like, hey, I'll probably be here for like three, four years. And you ended up staying, I think seven or eight. So are you staying up to the game just in case you make a third comeback?

[A]

Well, you never know, Trent. I've learned, you know, it's good to just not to say never because you don't know. And when I retired the first time, I thought that was it. And I really had a great run this last position. I really enjoyed it. That's the reason I ended up staying longer than I originally committed to. It's a great company to work for.

[B]

Excellent. All right, so now that you've had time to reflect on your career, I think anytime somebody even takes maybe a week or a two off, you know, a week or two off vacation from, from work, there's certain clarity that comes from that. You see things a little differently, maybe things at a higher level. And so with, you know, again, since you've been retired for a little while, anything that you've thought about, I would have done this differently at any stage of your career.

[A]

Yeah. When I look back, you know, I was very blessed in my career and I was very fortunate to get to, you know, progress, you know, pretty quickly. And I ended up with over 30 years experience as a CAE. So when I look back, I say, you know, why did that happen? And I was very fortunate to have some great mentors who early in my career who gave me advice. And I was smart enough back then to follow their advice and, and lay it out for my career and it worked out really well. So when I look back, I just don't have a lot of regrets. I'm not the type of person that likes to look back and say, oh, I wish I would have done this, I wish I would have done that. Because what's happened has happened and I'm a more future looking guy. What's coming down the pike? What's next? What can I do to influence the future? Because I can do nothing to influence the past.

[B]

That's a good way to look at it that there's a lot of wisdom, I think, behind those words. I think a lot of people get hung up on the past even as soon as, you know, five minutes later you leave a meeting and you go, I knew I should have said that this way or, you know, whatever the case is. So what was there? Websites, magazines, articles, anything like that? That was kind of your go to place for what's coming up. You've mentioned that twice now. Were there like resources that you would make sure to, to read? And these are like, these are my go to resources. So I can see we can just call it emerging risks if we want to stick to kind of the audit nomenclature.

[A]

Yes. For the emerging risk. I always look at the big four and look at each one of their, you know, perspectives on what the upcoming risk was. Read the IIA leadership. And then something I found of, you know, of high value to me was, you know, the CAE roundtable that participated in, I know my, you know, last industry. You know, we, we got together on a very regular basis and you know, kicked off with, you know, couldn't discuss anything confidential. But you know, the trends that were coming were going to affect all of us. So we would get together and kick around ideas. A lot of times one of the big four, four would be There hosting it for us and would give us their perspective on what was coming. I did that the same thing when I was in the chemical industry. There was a very active, you know, roundtable of the chemical company CAEs and active participant in that. So I found out I got a lot out of my career as well as from the big four and the IAA and trying to keep up with where. Where are things coming from.

[B]

I just facilitated a CAE roundtable for an IA group. And we've done that a few times and it's pretty impressive what you come away with and seeing what, what gets discussed there. So all that to say there's a cae. And even if there's not, I really recommend it for anyone. Regardless of the level you're at, if there's not a round table type group that you're part of, create one or go find one. It is crazy valuable to be able to be a part of those.

[A]

Well, it is because we all read the same literature and the big four come to us and, you know, and they're great about sharing their literature. But then, you know, if that's all the theory, you know, then comes the practical goal where you got to implement and do it and, you know, the issues you're running into that there's where, you know, I found real value in roundtables.

[B]

Yeah, that's a really good point because there was a few initiatives that people had kicked off that were popular over the years. So that was kind of a topic of conversation as we were talking about AI and the reality of it. And somebody's going like, yeah, we tried this thing. You know, we went pretty hard on like RPA or something like that. And this is the end result. And so they were able to share like, we tried this. This didn't work for us. This did work for us. And so I think that was. Those were really good conversations. It was actually really enjoyed that. So let me plug. If there's any IA chapters looking for someone to facilitate those, please let me know. I had a really good time doing those. But either way, let's say one, one of the reasons I want to do this kind of retired CAE series is to kind of like pull back the curtain a little bit. I feel like there's some things probably even amongst, well, amongst the CAE roundtables, I think you do get a bit more of this than you would otherwise. Rarely, if ever do you see someone post on like LinkedIn or somewhere else kind of behind the, behind the curtain, peek at what's going On. Hey, everybody, we're going to take a quick break from our guests. And if you need to get analytics or AI actually working in your internal audit department, or if you already have some of it, you feel like you're not really getting exactly what you need out of it, you know, there's more you're not getting that. Go to the show Notes, look for the Green Skies analytics link. Click it on the website. There'll be other links that you can click that'll take you directly to a calendar to schedule time. It's literally three clicks to get the time scheduled to get it figured out. All right, back to the show. So you can kind of take this question any way that you want to. But if there's a new CAE or an aspiring CAE and they ask for a lesson in politics, maybe from your, your time pre retirement that you may or may not have put on record while you're on the job, what story would you tell them?

[A]

Yeah, politics is a big part of our job. You know, we're, we're managing risk and, you know, everybody has their own version and then their own risk appetite. So, you know, when the CAE's in there, you know, evaluating risk, you know, there's always a tendency to have a lot of discussion around that. And I'll share one incident with you, and this was heavy with politics, and as I go through it, I think you'll get appreciation for that. I had a whistleblower, you know, he showed up in my office. I looked up on my desk and there was a guy standing there. And he came in, want to know if he could talk with me. And I said yes. He came in and he described a situation for me that, you know, he thought was inappropriate that was going on within the company. And I listened to him and took some notes. And then I asked if I had his permission to share that, you know, who, him, as well as the, you know, what he was, the situation he was going over. And he said yes, you know, I'm open to that, and anybody wants to talk to me, I'm free to talk to him about that. So I won't go into all the details of that. I'll go into what happened as a result of that. You know, there was an investigation of the matter, and that resulted in, you know, the SEC getting involved. And then within the company, the company had a set of lawyers, the audit committee had a separate set of lawyers. And then, you know, the, the key executives that were involved in this had their own lawyers. So there were a Lot of lawyers involved. And then, you know, I was told I would report to the audit committee's attorney during this investigative period, which took months. So I think you can see the natural conflicts that came up as, as we went through that. And me being reporting into him, I wasn't running the department. I asked the number two person in the department to take over running it on a day to day basis because we were working long hours and there wasn't any hours left in the day to spend on the regular group. I ended up testifying twice in front of the SEC and going over the details and the facts as I knew them. When it was concluded, the SEC ended up finding the company as well as some individuals within the company. And, you know, that was a very stressful time and created a lot of, you know, political maneuvering that had to be done because, you know, when this was over and I was done reporting for this attorney, he was going to go on to his next case and I was still going to be within the company and still had to operate effectively within the company. So that took, you know, took a lot of advice. And I would advise anybody that finds themselves in a similar position on this as, you know, stick to the facts, whoever you're talking to on this. You know, I had opinions along the way, but I've kept my opinions to myself and dealt with the facts and presented the facts and kept all the discussions fact based. And I think that helped me at the end when it was over and done, all the lawyers are going, I still got my day job of being a CAE then and have to go back to it, that people could look at me and say, okay, we did enjoy that. That wasn't fun and. But, you know, when Bob was involved, we could see that he was sticking to the facts and letting the other people draw the conclusions, because it wasn't my job to draw the conclusion. The SEC would draw their own conclusions based upon the facts we present. And I found out dealing with the SEC, you want to be 100%, you know, honest, forthright, you know, don't try to be QC with them. And if you do that, you'll get your. You'll get respect from them. And it goes, at the end of the day, better for the company and all the people involved if you take that approach with them and deal with them. So that was a political situation. I hope none of the CAEs that end up watching this end up in. I went a long time in my career before I ever got involved in one and was, you know, it Turned out to be a, you know, really a learning experience. And you know, when you're going through it is, it is zero fun. But when you look back at it, you know, you really learn. I learned a tremendous amount in a short, a short time period.

[B]

The we've had another CAE on this is years ago who had dealt with a. Not a similar problem, but similar in terms of how big of a deal it was, if we put it like that, and shared very similar advice. And I just stuck to the facts, here's the facts. I just tried to stick to those. I tried not to get emotional around those and just tried to, like you said, state the facts. So I think that's a very, very good takeaway for folks that will likely end up in a pretty high stress political situation at some point. Maybe not to the degree that, that the, the one that you were in, but at some point. I think that's really solid advice. But I did want to provide maybe some context around that and the severity of this. And in terms of. So for those that are listening are like, I had no idea, like it would really get that serious in what we do. I just test controls and you know, put them in a, an audit report. So how would you say how maybe common is what happened in that situation for other folks?

[A]

Yeah, it's not something that's going to happen to every cae. They're going to be in political and stressful situations. But going in front of the SEC is not something that's going to happen to everyone. And you know, you go out and read the literature, you don't find any literature on how to talk to the SEC and how to do it. As fortunate, the attorney that the audit committee had hired was, was highly experienced and he gave me a lot of really great coaching. And his, his one was, Bob, keep the emotions out of it, stick to the facts and don't make them pull every ounce of information out of you. You know, be upfront with them and be forthright with them and we're going to be fine. You know, the facts are what the facts are. Yeah. And then they'll make the judgment they made. So he, he really coached me through this. So if you get into it, you know, hopefully you have a great attorney. Because I didn't get to pick the attorney, obviously. You know, the audit committee picked the attorney and they did a fantastic job, you know, making the attorney.

[B]

Yeah, that's nice. I always say when it comes, you know, there's everybody's got their own lawyer joke, but mine is Always. I love my lawyer. I just hate everybody else's lawyers. I really like mine. I just don't like everybody else's. So. Sounds like you. You might have been. It might have been similar for you, but Harvard, one of my.

[A]

Yes. And through my career, I've had other cases to use attorneys. And I tell you, a good attorney. I know their hourly rate makes you choke when you see what you have to pay them per hour, but if you get a good one, they're worth every dollar you spend on it. And the good ones are very efficient, too. They. They aren't there to run the hours up. And it's the ones that aren't so good will sometimes try to run the hours up because they don't have as many jobs going and what they do.

[B]

Early on, one of the first mentors I had when I started consulting on my own, she went through like two years worth of this IP litigation and who owned it and who didn't. When she had first started out and she was super, super successful and she told me, she's like, like, get all this stuff set up right. You know, you've got every kind of the foundation set up. She went, go get a good lawyer. Here's the one. I, you know, I can recommend this firm, have them review everything because, yeah, you got to pay for it on the front end and that, you know, but nobody likes that. But she said I went through two years of this with someone because she wasn't prepared on that end. So, yeah, again, love mine. Don't like everybody else's. Okay, so this is probably one of my favorite questions that we ask most guests. If we don't do it on the show, like during the recording that we're doing right now, we will almost always ask it behind the scenes kind of in the. Our kickoff preparation call. But I'm very interested to hear from again, someone a retired CA's perspective. If you could grab every auditor in the world by the shoulders and just shake them and say, just do this one thing, what would that be?

[A]

Communication skills. You know, you need your technical audit skills, your technical accounting skills, your, you know, technical control skills. But those are just the skills you need for price of entry to get your foot in the door. If you're going to progress and have a successful career, concentrate on your communication skills, both written and oral, because those will make all the difference in your career because you can come up with some of the greatest findings that could have a significant impact on the company. But if you don't know how to present it and work with people on getting it implemented, it's of no value. You spend a lot of time, you spend a lot of effort and you got something that could have potentially been impactful to the company, but it's not because you couldn't communicate it properly to people and communicate it in a manner that they could see the benefit to the company. So work on your written and oral communication skills. You know, I'll get on my soapbox a little bit. That's, that's not something that the universities and you know, by partner Ivy League ones, you know, the other, you know, many other schools, top notch rated schools, they don't spend much time on developing the students communication skills. And that's so important. If you're sitting in front of the CFO and trying to sell him on one of your ideas and what the issue is and you're fumbling and mumbling and bumbling around and can't get it out in a clear and concise manner because you're only going to get a little bit amount of their time. They're not going to sit there all day for you to try to figure out what you want to say to them. You know, you got to be in, be clear, precise, correct, factual based, have your support and do it. And the better your communication skills are, the better that will go for you.

[B]

Did you have any maybe routine or courses or anything like that that you took to improve written and oral skills or was it more over time you were aware of? I didn't do great in this meeting. Lessons learned. Let me make sure I don't do that again. Any kind of advice that you could pass on and how to improve on those?

[A]

Yeah, I was fortunate. When I was, you know, early in my career, I was working for a Fortune 50 company and you got in the hypo group, you know, the high potential group. They had a set of courses they took you, you know, sent you to. And one of the ones that I got sent to was a week long public speaking course. And it was intense but we went every day, you know, long hours and then they gave you a bunch of homework and you're in front of the camera, every word you said was critiqued and you were, you know, evaluated and then. But I tell you at the end of the week it was so much different. And for every one of us in that class and this was not just caes, this was, you know, people in a lot of different, you know, disciplines. And I think that was probably the most beneficial course course that I was fortunate to to be able to attend as I was, you know, learning my craft and, and wanting to progress.

[B]

Okay, so definitely look inwards towards. This was a company sponsored internal training, is that what you're saying?

[A]

No, no, this was an outside course. They sent us that. I was. The company I was working for was, you know, headquartered in New York. This was based in Boston. And so I went up and spent a week in Boston and in front of the video camera, me and all my classmates many, many times every day and critiqued, you know, by each other as well as by the instructor who was very good. And we went through and did that and it was intense.

[B]

If there's anyone in the Boston area or somewhere close. Do you recall what that course was?

[A]

No, it was called. It was a public speaking course. But, you know, and obviously there are some differences between public speaking and speaking within a company, but they aren't significant on, you know, increasing your skill set, on the ability to do it because you're presenting, you know, as a CAE to your audit committees, which is made up of outside directors. And the better you are at it, you know, the better it will work for you and for them and getting your message across. So I found that was much better in front of the audit committee from attending this one week course as I, as I was developing. But they had everybody in their hypo. Let's go through that. And I was fortunate to get to go. So it wasn't fun, especially at the first when we realized all the things that we could be doing much better by the end of the week. We had, you know, of course, corrected that. And then one of the things I found very useful was, you know, being active in your IIA chapter and then presenting it to chapter meetings. You know, you're in a, you know, a more safe environment that you than you are, you know, sitting in front of the audit committee, your peers, and they'll be supportive of you and other people. So I got active in that. I was very active in the aicpa. I got on the speaking tour of conferences, I would go speak at those. So, you know, worked hard to, you know, hone my skills in that area. And you can never get too good at it.

[B]

Okay, if you were to write a book about your career, what would the first chapter be about?

[A]

Well, I was, you know, in my career. I had a little different unique experience from some CAEs. And then, you know, I ended up working for several different companies and I was brought in as the turnaround guy. They, you know, the audit committee and the Board and management was unhappy with the audit department. So I was brought in to turn, you know, these departments into high performing departments that were added value within the company. And the three things I concentrated on was people, processes and technology. And I quickly learned if you got those three right, everything else would fall into place. And with people being the hardest one to solve, obviously, because you, and you know, every place I went, you inherited group. Well, if those are all high performers, I wouldn't have been there. So you had to, you know, quickly figure out who wanted to be there, who was willing to change, who was willing, you know, to take coaching and you know, work, you know, willing to spend, you know, a lot of effort with people to bring their skill set up if they were willing to learn. And so that, then, you know, I found out early on if people made their decisions, yeah, this is the kind of group I want to be with. This is going to be much different to what I've been doing and I'm willing to do it and you know, put in the work and effort to get it done or nah, he's going down a path that, that, that I'm not suited for and don't have the skill set for. And then they would self select them out. I rarely had to actually get rid of somebody. So I was, you know, fortunate in that because, you know, they're people, they got families, they got lives and you know, they recognize that's not the right spot and that's, you know, it, that's easier for them to make that decision and, and move on and you know, they can be happy. And I said, you know, anytime you want to stop by and have a cup of coffee, glad to do that. And you know, they go on and they find something that they're, they're happier doing in their career. So you know, there's, and there's where you find. I found the reward is in the, you know, the development of people and seeing people, you know, progress and move up the ladder themselves and become CAEs is the most rewarding part of the job. But, you know, I concentrated on those three areas.

[B]

What about the last chapter in that book? What would that be about?

[A]

Well, there you look back and you know, and you know, I was fortunate when I, and I've had that chance because, you know, I've been retired now for, you know, about a year and my second retirement and as we mentioned and you know, I look back and you know, you celebrate the wins and you, you look and you look at where people are. I still mentor some people that have worked for me two or three companies ago that, you know, they still call me and, you know, ask for advice on this and are, you know, they're having this situation. They don't, you know, give me the details of any of the confidential information, but they describe a situation and how, you know, get some input handling it. And I really enjoy doing that. And, you know, when you look back at your career, you have to realize you are responsible of your career. Your boss is not responsible for your career. The audit committee is not responsible for your career. You are responsible for your career. So if it hasn't worked out, you know, it's because you didn't do something right. So you have to be honest with yourself and look yourself in the mirror and say, well, if I'm not happy, it's because of me. I had the opportunities. Did I take advantage of the opportunities, Did I put the hard work and the effort in to achieve those, you know, goals that I set for myself? Because I. I find setting goals a very important part. Part I would set my personal goals and every year, you know, had to improve the department that I was running, whatever company or industry I was in, you know, what things are we going to do different? You know, and more than one occasion, you know, some of my direct reports would say, bob, Kate, we have a break this year. You know, do we always have to do it better? And I said, yes, because if you don't do it better, you know, that's how you become extinct. I said, the world doesn't stand still for us or anybody else. And I said, you have to constantly be reinventing yourself and striving for doing things more efficient and better. And probably got that from my time in the manufacturing world. And, you know, you're always, you know, stressing how you could get tweak, you know, a quarter of a percent of a penny out of cost, and, you know, you multiply it by the, you know, the billions of units you're making, you know, it added up to some significant money. So you're always doing that. So that fed into other groups. And I'm a big believer in, you know, you know, constant improving and constant learning.

[B]

Yeah, I think I can appreciate that, if nothing else, if I have to do the same thing over and over and over, even year over year, I get pretty bored with it. And so we've always tried to do the. Take the approach of, let's try to make this thing a little bit better every single time, including. We do it with the podcast. We do it with a conference that we host and internally our processes here also, I just kind of get bored with it. And then when I get bored, I go, I don't really want to do this. And so then that's kind of the trigger almost to go, all right, well, let's change it, make it different, do it, you know, better somehow. So I can appreciate that. I think if I, if I took one overarching kind of note from this so far would be that. So the dealings, we'll just say with the sec, that story that you shared and then your week long communications training, and for both of them, you kind of had a similar sentiment. You're like, it was absolutely brutal. No fun. I think you said no fun a couple of times, but then you said when you kind of came out of it, you were all the better for it. And so I had this saying that I tell myself all the times, like, just like, I wish there were lessons learned the easy way. You know, it's always like, oh, you learned the lessons the hard way. I'm like, when is a lesson that's going to be learned the easy way going to happen? So I think that's something that I'm taking away from this, is if you don't go through kind of the suck, then you're probably not going to be better on the other end of it. So I appreciate that perspective that I now have even more so from you, from, from talking to you. But anyway, with that said, I did want to leave the. Let the listeners hear you and kind of your final thoughts to kind of close out the show. So I will throw it to you. The stage is yours. What do you want to leave the audience with?

[A]

Well, you know, where I come from on this and is, you know, whatever you end up deciding to do because an accounting degree, you know, you know, I got my MBA as well. You know, you have a lot of avenues of choice and where you want to go. Do you want to, you know, try to become the CEO, do you want to try to become the cfo, do you want to be the cae, or do you want to go into marketing? Because with the accounting degrees and also with being in internal audits, seeing the whole company come into different disciplines with a more holistic perspective, you can do that. So what you want to do is find something you love. Because if you don't love it, you're not going to put that extra effort in on a consistent basis. So find something you love to do, do it, do it to the utmost best of your ability, and work very hard at it. And you'll look back and say, wow, I not only had a successful career, I enjoyed doing it. And I had some fun doing it along the way. Because you're going to spend a lot of hours at work. And so if you're there just to get a paycheck, you probably won't end up being a CA or a CFO or the CEO. The people that get into, you know, the upper levels and into executive management, they're co. They love what you're doing and they do it and they put the extra effort in to be successful at it and to stay on top. I mean, if you look at top athletes, they're usually the ones that practice first and leave practice last. And they're extremely talented, but they know they got to continue to put that extra effort in that they want to be one of the best.

[C]

Hey everyone, thank you very much for listening to this episode of the Audit Podcast.

[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

Thank you all. Have a great one.